Abstract:
The Regina household energy consumption model is designed to estimate residential
energy consumption for the city of Regina using agent-based technology. The impact of
social and economic factors on the levels of energy consumption has been taken into
account. It is built on Complexity & Organized Behaviour Within Environmental
Bounds (COBWEB) technology, which is a platform design for multi-agent simulation.
COBWEB was developed to study agent adaptation to environmental variability and
change.
The Regina household energy consumption model uses COBWEB’s agent technology to
represent the households and people within the households of the city of Regina in 2003.
Each household agent and each human agent in the household behaves based on its own
strategy. The model explores the behaviours of agents, which represent demographic
change and household energy consumption adapted to a complex environment.
The annual residential energy consumption of 8.869 PJ was found to be within 3% of the
SHEU 2003 estimate and within 5% of the REUM estimate for the city of Regina, an
acceptable level of agreement. The Regina household energy consumption model, which
integrates agent-based technology, is proposed as a new approach to estimate the energy
consumption of the city of Regina.
Description:
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Science in Software Systems Engineering, University of Regina. vi, 137 l.
